Grocery Is a Picking Problem Wearing a Delivery Costume
A food order is three items and one kitchen. A grocery order is sixty items, four aisles, two things out of stock, and a price that is not final until someone weighs the produce. Dispatch is the last twenty minutes of a job that started an hour earlier.
The Order Lifecycle
Six states. Two of them happen inside the store, which is where most grocery deployments lose visibility.
- State 01Slot bookedCustomer picks a window against live capacity; card is authorised, not charged.
- State 02PickingPick list routed by aisle; items scanned and weighed at the shelf.
- State 03SubstitutionsUnavailable items proposed to the customer, accepted or refunded in-app.
- State 04PackedBags counted, chilled and frozen staged last, final basket total settled.
- State 05On the runLoaded onto a multi-drop slot run, sequenced by promised window.
- State 06HandoverID checked where required, refusals returned, proof captured per drop.
Grocery-Specific Features, Not Generic Delivery Ones
Five Surfaces, Configured for Grocery
Grocery adds one surface food does not need: a picker app that runs inside the store.
Slot picker with live capacity
Windows show what is genuinely available per store, not a generic calendar.
Substitution preferences
Set per item at checkout: allow, allow same brand, or refund if unavailable.
Weight-priced items
Estimated at checkout, final total shown after picking with the difference itemised.
Repeat baskets
Reorder a previous shop with out-of-stock items flagged before the slot is booked.
Live pick progress
Customer sees items ticking off and responds to substitutions in-app.
Age-restricted flow
Restricted items flagged at checkout so ID is expected at the door.
Aisle-ordered pick route
Items sequenced by store layout so a sixty-item basket is one pass, not four.
Barcode scan and verify
Wrong item caught at the shelf rather than at the door.
Substitution with approval
Picker proposes, customer accepts or refunds in-app, without a phone call.
Weight capture
Loose produce weighed and priced at the shelf, feeding the final total.
Batch picking
Two or three orders picked in one pass where the baskets overlap.
Cold-chain flags
Chilled and frozen items staged last and bagged separately.
Multi-drop slot runs
Several orders on one window, sequenced by drop time rather than distance alone.
Bag and crate counts
Loaded and confirmed at the store, checked off at each door.
Age verification at the door
Restricted items prompt an ID check that is recorded against the order.
Cold-chain handling
Chilled drops prioritised in the route and flagged in the loading order.
Doorstep adjustments
Refused or damaged items returned and refunded from the driver app.
Proof of delivery
Photo or signature per drop, retained against the order.
Slot capacity per store
Set by picker headcount and van count, adjustable during the day.
Stock and availability
Item-level stock pushed from POS, with manual override at the store.
Picker assignment
Orders allocated across the picking team with live progress per person.
Local pricing and promotions
Per-store prices and offers on a shared catalogue.
Exception queue
Unavailable items, refused substitutions, and failed drops in one list.
Cut-off management
Close a slot early when picking capacity runs out, without cancelling orders.
Network-wide slot reporting
Fill rate, cut-offs, and capacity waste by store and by window.
Substitution analytics
Which items go out of stock, how often the substitution is accepted.
Pick productivity
Items per picker hour, by store and by shift.
Delivery cost per basket
The number that decides the fee model, tracked per zone.
Fee and threshold rules
Delivery fee by basket value, slot, and zone, changed without a release.
Settlement and refunds
Post-pick adjustments applied to settlement rather than the original order.
Integrations
Grocery lives or dies on stock accuracy, so the POS and inventory connectors matter more here than the payment ones.
Where Grocery Margin Actually Goes
Four levers the platform exposes as configuration. Every one of them is a rule your ops team changes, not a release.
Slot fill rate
Items per picker hour
Substitution acceptance
Drops per run
Grocery Delivery FAQ
Questions specific to running grocery and supermarket delivery on DeliveryStack.
Still have questions? Contact our support team
Do we need a separate picker app? +
If pickers are store staff working from a phone or handheld, yes — and it is included. The picker surface is what makes the in-store half of the order visible: aisle routing, scanning, weight capture, and substitution approval. Operations running a dark store with a warehouse system can skip it and integrate at the order level instead.
How do substitutions and refunds settle? +
Payment is authorised when the slot is booked and captured after picking, so the customer is charged for what was actually picked. Accepted substitutions adjust the basket, refused items drop off, and doorstep refusals are refunded from the driver app. Adjustments land on the settlement run rather than reopening the original order.
Can we run grocery alongside food? +
That is the most common pairing we deploy. Grocery slots fill the flat hours between meal peaks on the same fleet, and both verticals share dispatch, the wallet, and one settlement run. Price them separately — a grocery basket routed and charged like a food order is how the second vertical quietly loses money.
Does it work for dark stores as well as supermarkets? +
Yes. A dark store is a simpler configuration: no shop-floor interference, fixed layout, and picking capacity you control directly. The same slot engine runs it, usually with tighter windows and higher picker productivity than a store-attached operation.
How are age-restricted items handled? +
Flagged at checkout so the customer knows ID will be required, carried through picking, and prompted at handover in the driver app. The check is recorded against the order with the driver's confirmation, and refusal returns the item and refunds it automatically. Which categories are restricted is configured per market.
Launch Your Grocery Delivery Platform
Three steps from catalogue to a live slot-based grocery operation.
Catalogue and stock
Product data imported and the POS stock feed connected so availability is live from day one.
Slots and fees
Capacity set per store from picker and van headcount; delivery fees configured by basket value and window.
Pilot one store
One store, a narrow set of windows, and the picking team trained — then widen the windows and add stores.